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The first step to answering that question is to start thinking of Africa as a continent full of individuals rather than through terms like "us" and "them".

Most answers in the affirmative involve a lot of rationalization and dehumanization and in the modern world likely some kind of starvation default swap sold by a financial institution.

We're all individuals sharing this planet. We are not our government(s). (Unless you're a head of state, then maybe)



So if a vaccine for a deadly disease is not 100% safe then you wouldn't use it at all as actively killing 1% is worse than passively allowing 80% (say) to die?

When making considerations of the well being of whole populations one has to consider the whole population not the individual.

A decision to withhold food aid now might kill 10%, but supplying that food and buoying up the population until the next big crisis is likely to kill far more people and could push us beyond sustainability - there is a point at which renewable resources become to depleted to recover. Sure, one can consider that the Jones family will lose their daughter and so we have to send food but this leads us on and on to overpopulation.


I would provide access to the vaccine and individuals could choose whether they wanted to take it.

It actually doesn't lead us to overpopulation. Once wealth & education increases to a certain point cultures change and people have fewer children. Paul Ehrlich went over this in the 60s and then made the famous wager with Simon over resources. I think this Malthusian argument has been thoroughly debunked.

The best result for the well being of whole populations is generally achieved by each person in that population doing what is best for themselves.


I would provide access to the vaccine and individuals could choose whether they wanted to take it.

That actually is a really bad idea from a public health perspective. Generally you need well in excess of 50% of the population to be vaccinated before it starts to provide protection to non-vaccinated individuals.

See:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herd_immunity http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathematical_modelling_of_infec...




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